Last week, “La La Land” tied “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for the most Oscar nominations ever, tallying up fourteen nods. Whether it goes on to match the eleven wins of James Cameron‘s box office smash, we’ll have to wait and see, but with the musical currently doing big business — $220 million worldwide and growing — it’s the rare intersection of commercial and critical favor coming together. However, that won’t stem the tide of criticism from those who believe the Academy doesn’t do enough to recognize populist entertainment.
Talking with The Daily Beast, Cameron says that despite recognition in recent years (mostly thanks to the expanded Best Picture category) of movies like “Inception,” “Gravity,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” there is still a bias against movies driven by visual effects or that fall into the more traditionally mainstream.
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“There’s definitely a bias. The Academy still has a majority of its members that are actors. Look, I love actors, but that’s how they think — they’re generally skeptical of technology. So when they see a film that’s too dependent on visual effects, they say, oh, that’s not an acting movie,” Cameron said. “Well ‘Titanic’ was a visual effects movie in sheep’s clothing, you know? Yes, it had visual effects, but it was about the people and about the story. The visual effects were eclipsed by that. But if you do a movie like ‘Avatar,’ the effects are right out front, and even though I felt the acting was just as good, and the story we were telling was just as good, they’re not going to reward it the same way. That’s just a fact of life. I had made a decision way before ‘Titanic’ that I wasn’t going to serve two masters: I was going to put my visual cinema first. Even though I’ve spent an awful lot of time on scripts and on performance, I still love doing big, visual cinema. I doubt I’ll even get nominated again, but if I did, I’m probably going to lose to a Woody Allen movie. That’s the nature of it. So you don’t try to serve two masters.”
It’s an honest answer from Cameron, who also reveals that he’s sticking with projects that come from his own brain, so don’t expect him to take a meeting about make a Marvel or “Star Wars” movie any time soon.
“I’m not the slightest bit interested in laboring in someone else’s house,” he said.
That means all of Cameron’s attention is on the “Avatar” sequels, as he shared an update on their status.
“I’ve just finished the script to ‘Avatar 5.’ I’m now starting the process of active prep. I’ll be working with the actors in the capture volume in August, so I’m booked in production every day between now and then. Our volume is up and running, and everything is designed, and so we’re going full-guns right now,” he said.
We’re guessing the first return to Pandora will happen in 2018.
Check your facts: blockbusters “The Dark Knight” and “Wall-E” were snubbed for Best Picture in 2009, which LEAD to the field being expanded to 10. That expansion allowed nominations for quite a few blockbusters in the following years, including “Avatar,” “Up,” “Inception,” “Toy Story 3,” “Gravity,” “The Martian,” and “Mad Max: Fury Road.” That’s not even including sleeper box office hits like “The Help,” “The Blind Side,” “Black Swan,” and “American Sniper.” Not a bad haul in seven years, in my opinion.
You’re welcome, Playlist. 🙂
I think the bigger issue is that most modern blockbusters have a bias against quality.
Look the Academy isn’t exactly what you’d call “creatively driven” anymore. Yeah you’ve had a few blockbusters in the last few years be nominated but how many ultimately win? You know I saw “Mad Max: Fury Road” and it was easily one of the most inventive films, not just visually but storywise. Now not saying “Spotlight” wasn’t good but let’s not pretend that there wasn’t a political motivation for having it (There was equal coverage of Mark Ruffalo protesting against the Catholic Church as much as coverage of the film). Most films that ultimately take home the statue are based in a political bias, now more so than ever. It was why when “Zero Dark Thirty” (The highest rated film of the Best Picture nominees that year) got destroyed by political opinion over the fact it was a great film and who do they give it to? “Argo”…the one where Hollywood saves the world. LOL The fact that three out of four of the last Best Picture winners was about film and Hollywood (And La La Land looks to continue this), says something there. And it’s not like Cameron himself hasn’t proven that blockbusters aren’t worthy. “Aliens” AND “Titantic”, a science fiction film about an alien infestation and a disaster/romantic film, were unlikely contenders but they were worth it. I’ve just felt films are so dredged up in political factors and that ruins the fun of storytelling that goes outside of politics and is more situation-specific.
Hollywood in toto has bias against visual, non-verbal storytelling because most movies made there begin with words on a page, aka the script. I don’t think this is a good thing and we’re lucky there are exceptions.